Coleman: Intel Alumni Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Chair: Intel Alumni Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering
[This] chair signals a growing partnership between ECE and Intel—already, a number of ECE alumni have established successful careers at Intel, and Intel has donated equipment to ECE‘s Integrated Circuit Fabrication Laboratory.
As Intel‘s senior sponsor for the University of Illinois, ECE alumnus Mark Bohr (MSEE ‘78) approached the College of Engineering‘s development office a few years ago with the idea for the endowed chair. Bohr, Intel‘s director of Process Architecture and Integration, then gathered support from other ECE alumni working at Intel.
In addition to Mark and Jean Bohr, other major contributors included Jerry Marcyk (BSEE ‘73, MSEE ‘76, PhD ‘78), Carl (BSEE ‘74) and Patricia Simonsen, Alan (MS-physics ‘75, PhD ‘79) and Carole Stivers, Leo (PhD ‘69) and Bella Yau, and Intel cofounder Gordon Moore and his wife Betty. The chair was created to recruit or retain a top researcher in integrated circuit technology within the department.
Faculty: James J. Coleman
Professor James J. Coleman is a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Department. He joined the Illinois faculty in 1982, after a six-year career in industry. As a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories (1976-78), he studied the growth and processing of long-wavelength lasers, and he developed high-performance lasers for early fiber-optic telecommunications systems. At Rockwell International (1978-82), he demonstrated the first AlxGa1-xAs-GaAs self-aligned laser structure, which is presently used in commercial compact disc lasers and high-power lasers for optical storage and medical applications.
Coleman's current research interests focus on the development of III-V semiconductor lasers and photonic devices grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). He and his students are studying quantum well heterostructures, superlattices, and low threshold single mode lasers and high power index guided laser arrays. They have demonstrated reliable low threshold index guided lasers, integrable distributed feedback lasers, and high power laser arrays (?>1µm) from lattice-mismatched strain-accommodated InGaAs-GaAs heterostructures.
Among his many awards and honors are the William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award, the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS) Award for pioneering research in high reliability strained layer semiconductor lasers, and the IEEE LEOS Distinguished Lecturer distinction. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Optical Society of America, and IEEE.
An Illinois electrical engineering alumnus, Coleman earned his bachelor's degree (high honors) in 1972; he earned his master's and doctoral degrees in 1973 and 1975, respectively.